NHS Trust welcomes efficiency boosting admin software
Southport and Ormskirk Hospital has become the latest in a string of NHS Trusts to introduce a new system to generate and manage clinical correspondence electronically.
The digital solution, developed by Medisec Software, has been installed after a pilot with medical secretaries from a range of specialties from across the Trust’s two sites.
MedisecTrust enables medical secretaries to automatically generate and store patients’ details which can then be easily transferred into a letter template. It allows clinical correspondence to be managed and delivered electronically, automating many routine tasks and generating clinic attendance or discharge notification letters in less than a minute.
Kate Monaghan, Assistant General Manager for Specialist Services at the Hospital, said: “When we initially launched the system we trialled it with representatives from both our sites and from every specialty from General Surgery to Haematology to make sure the way each area works and the tasks they routinely carry out can be handled by MedisecTrust. Luckily, it did and even better, the users all loved it!”
“The staff have found that it really speeds things up in terms of not having to type out full patient details as these come directly off the PAS system and into a letter template. This has made the correspondence process a lot quicker.”
MedisecTrust is now used by over 60 medical secretaries across the whole of the Trust.
“Once a secretary is used to the new software and how much easier it makes the correspondence process, they do not want to go back to the old methods of creating correspondence,” said Ms Monaghan.
MedisecTrust has also been rolled out to the Cancer Services Tracking Team and the Trust 18 Week Tracking Team to allow them to track patients on their respective pathways. They are able to access clinical letters in addition to viewing past, present and future appointments or admissions within the Trust. This has resulted in a reduction in telephone queries to secretaries as the Teams are able to view letters for themselves.
In addition MedisecTrust is now also used by Specialist Nurses within the Trust. They are able to access clinical letters easily without having to request case notes from the Medical Records department.
“This element has proved extremely useful as many patients contact the Specialist Nurses by telephone for advice, particularly regarding results, medication or post-operative advice. Many Specialist Nurses work across both of our hospital sites and, as a result, dealing with patient telephone calls at times would be difficult without the relevant information to hand. Through the accessibility of information on MedisecTrust, the Specialist Nurses are now able to deal with queries quickly as all information is available.” Kate added.
Kevin Buckley, Business Development Director at Medisec Software, added: “By helping Southport and Ormskirk Hospital to establish a manageable process for receiving complete, accurate and up-to-date patient information, this will ultimately lead to better patient care.”
